


Shaw of the 28th Century

by Chibifukurou, schrootdinger



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 08:36:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16761706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/pseuds/Chibifukurou, https://archiveofourown.org/users/schrootdinger/pseuds/schrootdinger
Summary: Burned by the Northern Lights agency, Shaw makes her living as a courier. When a package of sensitive data  ends up in her possession, it will be a race to see who will get the data.And who will survive.





	Shaw of the 28th Century

The bar was in the rough part of the Underlayer. Surrounded by VR dens and run down brothels. The only good things about it was that it was cheap, and near Shaw's last job. 

Even that had barely been enough to get her to stay when she saw the back table was full of a bunch of puffed up civilians. They wore dark clothes of natural fibers in multiple layers. The style common to the Underlayer. Their skin practically glowed, with how clean they were, and none of them had filter masks. 

Upper-layer civies, trying to slum it. It could only end in disaster. Shaw looked between them and the bar-top a few times. She should leave, but she really wanted a drink. She dropped into the seat closest to the door.

Having them at her back made her skin crawl. The bar had been made retro, lots of polished metal everywhere. A large mirror hung behind bar-top. 

She used it to keep an eye on the civilians. With a grinding whirr, a server robot trundled out from behind a door at the end of the bar. In a cheery voice, almost completely overtaken by static, it asked for her order. 

The bot was equally retro, done up in gold toned metal and poorly painted fake wood grain, patched with parts from a dozen other models. 

It slid the drink down the bar to her, with a happy cheap. She nodded back. Job done, it re-engaged its wheels with a whirr and disappeared back behind the door. 

It would come back out if someone called it, or when a certain number of minutes passed.

Until then, it was just her and the civies. She sipped her drink slowly, letting the burn of alcohol fill her mouth. It pierced the numbness that made up her everyday experiences. 

The civies were watching her, shoving elbows into each other's sides, and whispering in a conspiratory fashion between glances in her direction. 

It would be interesting to see if they thought she was one of the working girls from next door. Or if they wanted to get into a brawl, where it wouldn't go onto their security record. 

If she was smart, she'd slug the drink back, and head back out onto the causeway. They wouldn't follow her. 

No. They'd stay here, wait for some other Underlayer sucker to come looking for a drink. Then they'd attack. She wasn't having that on her conscious. 

One of the civies pealed off from his group. A skinny guy, face pointed and eyes beady as a rat. She watched his approach in the mirror and had to stifle a snort when half-way to her; he puffed up his chest and settled into a swagger like some kind of holo-stars idea of a bad-guy. 

He leaned on the bar beside here, mouth smirking, and asked, "You work around here?"

Shaw gave up nursing the drink and slugged back half of it in one swallow, leaving half a finger at the bottom of the glass. "Courier. I work everywhere." 

His beady eyes practically disappeared as he squinted at her. "Is that right?"

The rest of the civies had gotten up from their table and approached her from behind. Seemingly unaware that they were fully visible in the mirror. 

"That's right." She tossed the remaining alcohol in his face. 

He fell to the ground screaming. Which froze his cohorts in place. 

Civilians.

If she'd gotten distracted like that, her old handlers would have strung her up by her toes. Still. It worked to her advantage. 

She reached over the bar and grabbed a couple more bottles of alcohol. Tossing them at the collected mass of the men trying to sneak up behind her. A couple of the bottles broke, dousing them in burning liquid and glass shards. The others stayed solid and were painful enough to drive them out of their tight bunch.

She took ruthless advantage, closing in tight, and landing punches to floating ribs and genitals. In thirty seconds they were all down, groaning. 

Hopefully that would be enough to get them to give up on the idea of slumming. Probably not. They'd come here looking for a target who they could hurt without consequences. 

People like that rarely learned. She contemplated their alcohol soaked clothes. Natural fiber, flammable as anything. She could make sure they didn't get a chance to do this again. All it would take was a little spark. 

There was a creak behind her. She spun. Instinct making her go for the knife she kept strapped to her side, under her coat. 

But it was just the server bot. He whirred down the bar and called. "Anybody need a refill?"

If he was sophisticated enough to notice all the bodies on the floor, there was no sign of it. 

If she burned them here, the whole place would get decommissioned, bot and all. And there would be new security patrols put in place to keep the Underlayer folks in line. 

Nobody needed that. 

She put the knife back into its sheath. "I think I'm good, but the patrons at the back table wanted to let you know they'd taken a few bottles off of the bar themselves. They'll pay for those, and my drink too."

"Of course!" the bot chirped, "Will there be anything else?"

"No. I think we're fine." 

"Alrighty. I'll go tally their bill." It trundled away with its soft whir. 

Once it was out of sight, she headed for the door and flicked the switch to turn the open for business beacon off. Then she pulled on her mask and slipped out into the crush of bodies on the causeway.

#

She kept her chin tucked to her chest as she wove through the Underlayer's causeways. Scantily clad women and augs peaked out of storefronts layered thick with posters from pornos and popular TV shows. Gang bully boys watched the corners and their call and retort games filled the air over the general din of people packed in too tightly together. 

Above their heads the transport layer was filled with railcars. The scream of their brakes sounded every few minutes. She'd been here three months, and the noise was getting familiar. 

Everyone with sense was wearing masks to cut down on the smell of burnt ozone and smoke. Holo displays flickered outside of stores, cheerily dressed weather-people smiled as they warned about an acid rain storm forecasted to hit that night. 

"But don't worry, just stay inside the Tower force-fields and you'll be a-okay!" The last was said with a bright grin. 

Shaw cast an annoyed look upwards. A hundred layers down and the sky was only visible as a faint smudge through the various walkways, transport tubes, and trains overhead. Sadly, that wasn't enough to keep the Underlayer safe from the rains. The force-fields only covered the areas of the Tower where people paid taxes and the government cared about people staying alive.

Which meant she wouldn't be able to find another bar to drink at tonight. Not unless she wanted to risk severe burns and end up in a med-center. Where her identity would be scanned. 

There was a shrill whistle from one of the corner boys. Security coming. 

Fuck. She was carrying. The bag of Glimmer tucked in the hidden pocket sewed into the seam of her jacket would get her thrown into lock-up for the night. 

Training kept her from running. She kept a measured pace, just a touch too fast to be casual. Then, when the inevitable panicked rush started, as people heard the wailing sirens, she let herself be pushed to the edge and ducked into an alley. 

From there it was a matter of free-climbing up to a repair ladder leading to the transport layer. She didn't go all the way up, just to the first set of catwalks. On soft-feet she padded out into the area above the street. The sound of her footsteps lost in the shouting from below. 

She kept to the high-road until she cleared the lower part of the Underlayer and was into the pylons that supported the transport tracks. This area was residential. Originally made for the city construction crews to live in, they were mostly filled with people who wanted to keep off the surveillance grid that made up the rest of New York. 

Another ladder led back down. Her bunk was a few blocks down from there and then a climb all the way back up again. This time by way of the stairs. When she'd first come to New York Tower, the bunk had been empty and cheap. Nobody wanted to live right under the magnetic resonators of the transport layer. 

As she pushed the door open, a wall of low, teeth grinding noise hit like a blow. The noise would be less overwhelming when there wasn't a train on her part of the track, but it never went away.

It was a price she was willing to pay for security. No bug could pick up this close to the resonators. She checked the place for any signs of tampering before relaxing enough to take her hand from the hilt of her knife. 

The whole bunk was one room, with only a battered couch and a galley kitchen to break it up. 

The shared bathroom was down at the other end of the hallway.

She collapsed onto the couch and yanked her jacket off. Sweat was beading in her long, black hair. With the jacket off, she opened the hidden pocket. The Glimmer reflected the lights with a soft opalescent glow. Despite costing most of the money she had, from a week's worth of jobs, it was only enough to last a few days.

It was a never-ending cycle she couldn't find a way to break. A single hit and everything went deep and colourful. Her ever-present numbness faded back to manageable levels. It would be better if she had actual meds, but those were five times the cost and would have required getting her i-dent chip scanned.

Which was the equivalent of committing suicide. The slightest hint she was still alive, and her old employers in the Intelligence agency would come for her. 

So she was stuck with psychotropics. Not exactly what the doctor ordered. But since she was the doctor in question, it would have to do. 

#

She woke up in the morning to a buzzing headache and surrounded by three days worth of ration packets. Which was for the best. She'd been living on instant coffee spiked with whiskey for the last four days. Since she'd run out of Glimmer. 

She measured out the doses she had left. Another week if she only used every other day. But then she'd be broke, out of rations, and out of drugs. Tempting as it was to go back to sleep, she needed to get a job chosen. Before the last of the energy and drugs burned off and she was too numb to make decisions.

Forcing herself to get up, she went to get her pad. It was a hacked model, all the location and tracking chips gutted out of it. Still a risk, but one she'd had to make peace with.

She'd originally tried getting courier jobs the old fashioned way, working through an agency and getting in person orders. She'd been banned, after she'd knifed one of the deployment guys, who tried to get her to have sex with him for better gigs. 

He'd been lucky she hadn't taken his dick off. The creeper. 

Despite the fact that the light coming through her slit of a window is gray and dim, her tablet said it was past noon. Most of the fast money gigs would be gone by now. 

With a groan she dropped the tablet on the floor beside her couch and curled back up into a ball. She really didn't want to have to deal with all of this right now. Another dose, and she'd sleep the rest of the day. Get up tomorrow, at the right time.

It would be so easy. 

Training and paranoia eventually prodded her into turning the tablet back on and logging into the job lottery page. 

It was buzzing with activities. Jobs got posted and claimed at mind numbing speed. The sheer amount of data to go through was too much. 

She hit the filters, and turned off any jobs posted in the last hour. The flashing ads stopped. She was left with four ads, none of them showing any recent bids from other curious. 

One was an obvious plant. It had been posted only five minutes after the Lifts opened in the morning. And gave the addresses right in the posting. One address was right in middle of drug running territory. 

She'd worked as a mule before, but no self-respective drug dealer would post an add in a public forum. Narcs on the other hand, never seemed to learn. 

Two of the other jobs were live item gigs. One requiring actual permits for transporting exotic merch between layers. 

No way was she dealing with that.

It was a little harder to see why the forth job hadn't been claimed. It gave a pick up address in one of the office blocks on a midlevel floor. And the drop off as a different office building some thirty floors away. Pretty standard practice for offices that didn't keep their own transport staff. 

The courier requirements were where things got interesting. No computer augments for the courier. Which would put about eighty percent of the independent couriers out. Augs gave you the edge, both in how fast you could bid on contracts, and getting real time traffic updates while you were on the job. 

The only reason you wouldn't allow a courier to use them, was if you were transporting private data that needed heavy security. And then any company worth their salt would hire private security to do the drop. 

She should blank the job out, and go back to the current jobs. See if she could get a couple low level gigs. But curiosity was one of the few vices she had left, after her years in the Northern Lights branch of the US Intelligence agency.

And the idea of someone setting a courier up, by giving them a secure item to carry didn't sit right with her. She could report them to the site maintainers, maybe get the job taken down. 

But that wouldn't stop the poster from trying again. She put in a bid, over two hundred times the asking price the poster had put. 

They accepted in under a minute. 

Yeah, something was definitely fishy. She felt the part of her that was always looking for a fight, sit up and take notice. 

She was going hunting. 

It was almost like old times.

#

Shaw watched the office lobby through the plate-glass windows. It was a posh kind of place, trying to look even posher than it was. Thirty layers from the top, and with a mixed bag of private renters, it wasn't the type of place that could afford real wood furnishings or live plants. 

But it had been decorated with stained bamboo and a variety of high quality plastic succulents. And the floors had been covered with thick blue floral patterned rugs. And more of the fake wood. 

They even had a reception desk manned by a human instead of a bot. She was thankful she'd taken the time to get into a synth fabric body-suit in a patterned blue and purple fabric. It wasn't required of couriers to dress like upper level workers, but this far up she didn't want to stand out. Or get blocked by a receptionist who thought she was too disreputable to meet with their employer.

She pasted a charming smile on her face, using her training to make sure it appeared genuine, then strode through the door into the office. The receptionist looked up at the hiss of the door opening. 

Their smile was not nearly as genuine looking. Eyes narrowed as they surveyed her. She approached the desk, like she didn't notice. 

"I'm here on a courier run."

The receptionist's mouth pinched. "If you will take a seat." 

Shaw bobbed her head agreeably before heading over to the seats lined up against the far wall. She picked the one in the corner closest to the door. 

The receptionist kept their eye on her as they pulled up an old fashioned hand set and spoke into it. This would have been where Shaw started getting physical if she still worked her old job. 

Instead, she concentrated on keeping her body language relaxed. Fishy as the job was, the receptionist probably wasn't a terrorist plotting to kill her. Despite the body-suit and the holo-fabric bag she had strapped to her back, Shaw hadn't taken any further steps to appear like an upper-layer dweller. Her face was bare, lacking the mix of brightly shaded eye and lip tints and holo-glitter, that the receptionist was wearing. And her hair was pulled back into a simple tail and left its natural black.  
If she'd felt up to her usual level of blending in, she'd have taken the time to do a temp dye and put on at least a little glitter or tinting. But, the Glimmer had run out halfway through getting ready. It had been all she could do to stuff another half-ration down her throat and put on new clothes. 

The door beside the receptionists desk opened, revealing a man in a wrapped jacket, layered over a staid gray and blue body-suit. He had only a touch of holo-glitter dusted over his high cheekbones and streaked through his blond hair. 

His stride was intentionally casual and his smile just as genuine seeming as Shaw's. Every detail screamed Intelligence Agent. Just enough gilding to fit in, without drawing attention. 

The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She got to her feet before he reached her, stepping far enough away from the chair she wouldn't get tangled if she needed to run. 

"You must be the couriers. I'm glad you accepted the job. I can't spare the time today. Seeing clients all day."

Shaw looked over his shoulder at the receptionist. They were mid eye-roll. Yeah, he definitely wasn't meeting other clients. "It's no trouble."

"If you don't mind? I just want to make sure you don't have any augments that would cause a problem." He waved an i-dent scanner in her direction. Not on yet. Or at least not that she could tell. 

"Sure." Her fake i-dent chip would hold up against casual scans. And if he was using a government level scanner, refusing would just end up getting her detained and scanned, anyway. 

The scanner lit, at a touch of his thumb, and he whipped it over her from her head to her feet. It gave off a soft chime. "It'll just be a minute."

She relaxed. A minute meant it wasn't a networked scanner. It would decrypt the broadcasting chip instead of using her actual bio-markers. 

The scanner buzzed again, and he held it up to look for a long second. "Everything looks in order." 

"Great." She was careful not to show how genuine that sentiment was. "The package?"

"Right." He reached into the pocket of his jacket and lifted out a small case. It was padded and sealed with a retinal lock. 

"This needs to be delivered to Decima consulting on layer fifty-five. Like I said, just standard stuff. It is confidential though. So if it is tampered with, you will forfeit your fee."

She nodded. "That won't be a problem." 

"Good. I'll send your i-dent information to Decima then."

She was tempted to point out that was both an invasion of privacy and against standard operating procedures, but she swallowed the urge back. Whatever was going on here, she didn't want to give him a reason to think she was suspicious. "Great. It was nice meeting you, Mr.?"

"You can call me Dillinger." 

"Thank you for the contract then Mr. Dillinger." She tucked the case into her pack and left the office. 

She took the Lift down. None of the Lifts covered more than five layers. After that she'd need to cross most of a layer on foot before getting to the next Lift. That would repeat at least seven times if she didn't run into any Lift closings or roadblocks. 

Which was pretty much guaranteed to happen. Hopefully she'd make it to Decima before they used her I-dent to track her. Having her client able to track her movements made her nervous. There was an itch at the back of her brain that meant she'd be doing something to derail the job, if she'd wasn't so numb.

She squashed that urge. If Decima turned out to be some kind of covert ops group, she'd handle it. For now, she needed to do the job, and get paid. 

#

She picked up a tail after she got off her second Lift. He was tall, fit, dressed in a long, black coat over a dark body-suit. She couldn't spot any active tech beyond an in-lense and communicator. That type of low tech approach to spying had gone out with the last if you asked most operatives. 

Shaw had used similar methods when she'd been an Agent. People didn't expect Intelligence to look like a midlevel tech worker who was being tracked by their superior. 

She clocked him when he followed her down the third Lift and into a smaller apartment complex layer. Not quite suburbs, not quite slums. The type of district that cropped up around all the Lifts between the business and the transit layers. 

Besides the housing blocks there were only a few kiosks that sold cheap holos and gadgets, manned by perpetually cycling drones. No reason for an IT person to be traveling five different layers with her. 

She also suspected, that if she was wearing an in-lense scanner, he'd light up like a spotlight when she hit the weapons scan. The case was still tucked into her bag and he hadn't gotten close enough to steal it. He'd try soon.

If Decima was tracking her i-dent chip, she couldn't afford to get too far off track. They might think she was stealing the data. But hopefully a circuitous route to their offices wouldn't send up any red flags. She used the surrounding windows to watch her tail. The cheap plas-glass and decorative films distorted her view, but it was still clear enough to see that him gaining on her. 

Not fast enough to be obvious, but he'd be on her before she made the next Lift. 

She sped up. He sped up along with her. She broke into a run, making a turn that would take her off of the central causeway. And into the branching corridors and side streets that led away from the Lift.

There were other ways between the layers. Fire safety dictated that there be multiple ways out in case of danger, and any neighbourhood worth their salt eventually hacked at least one entrance into the repair tunnels. Because nobody wanted to wait a fucking year or two to get the fuses swapped. 

The halls off the main causeway switched directions every few apartment blocks. She didn't see her tail. But she was pretty sure he was still behind her. 

What was on the data chips she was carrying that was important enough for her to be tailed by an Agent? Or, had Dillenger's scan actually been government level? If they weren't interested in the data that meant they were coming to liquidate her. 

Either way, she was in trouble. 

She slowed from the run even though she wanted to go even faster. If he was tracking her chip, it wouldn't matter how fast she ran. And if he wasn't tracking her, she needed to keep from drawing attention to herself. 

A man stepped out of an apartment block ahead, and left the door to slide shut behind him, instead of stopping to lock it. She ducked around him and through the door, slamming her hand down onto the lock pad. 

The door snapped shut with a hiss. Above it, grainy footage from the security camera was playing on a holo screen. 

She kept her breath slow and controlled. If he figured the trick out and came after her, she needed to be ready to fight. And fight dirty. 

He passed by the door, following the turns that would lead him to the fire stairs. She stayed where she was. When he got to the stairwell, he'd be able to see she hadn't gone there. Then, he'd either use a tracker to find her chip, or he'd do a physical sweep. 

If he tried to search apartment blocks one at a time, it would mean he was after the data. And give her a chance to get away. 

He came back into camera range, moving slower, his eyes tracking from doorway to doorway. Probably looking for the burnt out light of a physically disabled lock. Just in case she'd been stupid enough to shoot or shock the lock into submission before hiding inside. 

She let her breath out in a long sigh. A physical search. So as long as she got to Decima he wouldn't keep tracking her. 

It was hard to tell in the grainy footage, but she thought he was subvocalizing to his communications ear piece. If he had a partner who could hack, it might not take long for them to locater her. 

Normally, she'd talk to Cole and have him block the hack. The sick feeling of loss sunk into her stomach, making her almost wish for her usual numbness. The tail moved out of sight of the camera. She waited a full minute before cracking the door. 

She led through the door with her knife, just in case he was waiting where the camera's range ended. The hallway was empty. Shoving the knife back into the sheath, she walked quickly towards the stairs. 

It was tempting to get up into the repair tunnels and catwalks. The vantage point would let her know where he was, but most agents learned early to keep an eye on the catwalks. Having him at her back put her nerves on edge.

She needed to get as much distance between them as she could. 

#

She took the stairs two at a time. They all looked the same. Ten steps then a landing, then another ten steps. Eight turns per layer. If it wasn’t for the flashing emergency signs and numbers, she’d think she was losing time. 

After another ten layers before the sound of someone talking echoes up to her. It’s a high voice. Probably a woman or young person. The echo effect made it impossible for her to tell what was being said. 

Pausing, she takes the time to catch her breath, while she tries to make sense of what she’s hearing. The words were short and sharp and didn’t give away enough information for Shaw to make sense of. She didn’t even know how the person on the other end could understand the argument. 

Whatever was going on, she’d have to pass them to get away. She tightened her grip on the straps of her backpack. Had her tail been herding her here?

Fuck. 

She took the stairs slow, keeping her back against the wall. What the hell was she carrying? Bad enough she’d had a tail. Now a possible second agent and whoever had been on the other end of the tail’s earwig. 

Things weren’t supposed to be this complicated. She made the final turn and caught sight of the woman. She was a tiny thing, barely taller than Shaw, with hair a natural brown and a black body-suit. Not a hint of flash in sight. 

She had an earwig similar to the other guy. But it was bigger and hooked into some kind of cranial unit. Only a second after Shaw catches sight of her, she spins. Her eyes are wide and soft, completely at odds with her smirk. “Hello, Agent Shaw.”

Shaw barely got her mouth open to deny her identity before there was a buzz and everything went white hot and hazy. Blackness followed. 

#

When she came to the woman was arguing again. Her voice sharp, but at least a little more understandable. “I did what She wanted me to do.”

Shaw cracked an eye open, just wide enough to get some idea of what was going on. Her original tail had joined the woman on the landing. 

“Finch said to wait.”

“I don’t answer to him.” The woman hissed, “besides, Shaw is fine.” 

Shaw didn’t feel fine. She was cuffed to the stair railing. And the taste of ozone on her tongue implied an electrical stun weapon had been used on her. 

“You were supposed to stall her, not knock her out.” The man said. His voice was deep and soothing. Nothing like the woman’s sharper tone. “We’re supposed to be protecting her. Not causing more damage.” 

Were they Decima agents? If so, why not just take the chip case and leave her here? “As fascinating as this conversation is, I need to get going.”

The man spun to face her. The woman didn’t. 

His smile was genial and disarming as he lowered himself to a crouch so they were at the eye level. “Hi. Sorry about this. Root gets a little enthusiastic.”

The woman didn’t sound anything near as trained. “She is here isn’t she, as long as she isn’t getting hurt we’re doing our job.” 

His head snapped around to look at the woman, “Root.” 

“She doesn’t want Shaw to get hurt. She’s not hurt.”

So the woman was Root and there was at least two other people on their team. Finch and whoever Root was answering to. 

“She is also chained to a staircase and we still don’t know what she is involved in that made her a target for the people that are after her,“ he looked back to Shaw, “I don’t suppose you want to tell us what you're involved in?

“Fuck you.” 

Root snorted. 

“Any idea why you have a terrorist cell after you? Tell me that and be happy to take off the cuffs”

Terrorist group, and whatever these two were. Today just kept getting better. “A terrorist group?”

Root interrupted before the man could keep trying to get information out of her. “You were a member of the Northern Lights organization. You were liquidated months ago without any reason listed and yet you are still alive and being chased by a bunch of people who would be happy to get their hands on someone who knows things about Northern Lights. So you did something that gave them reason to figure out who you were. Tell us what it is, we get rid of them and then I don’t care what you do.”

“I’m not stupid. I don’t know how you got my identity, but I didn’t get clocked by a bunch of terrorists.”

“Do you have another explanation for what is going on?”

If they didn’t know about the job, then she didn’t plan to tell them. “Maybe they just like my charming face.”

“We could find a way to make you talk.”

“Try me.” 

Root’s hand snapped out, grabbing hold of Shaw’s hair, right at the root. “Sounds good to me.”

“Enough!” The man surged back to his feet and knocked Root’s arm away, forcing her to let go of Shaw’s hair. 

“Don’t tell me what to do, Reese.” 

“Someone has to.”

They stared into each other’s eyes, having a wordless fight. 

Finally, Root broke the stalemate, cocking her head to the side, like she was listening to something. “I’m going to go talk to Her. Figure out what is going on, or I’ll do it for you.”

Saying nothing further, she started down the steps to the next landing. A few seconds later, she was talking again. The same mix of half-finished thoughts and yes/no questions she’d been spouting when Shaw first saw her. 

Shaw used the noise for cover as she inched her hands together in the cuffs. Until she could get a good enough grip on her hand to dislocate her left thumb. Pain like fire zigzagged down her arm, crawling through her shoulder and up her neck. Her face didn’t show a thing. She left her hand in the cuffs for now. 

When Reese turned back to her, his previous affable expression was back in place. “I know it looks bad, but I swear we just want to make sure you are safe, and Decima doesn’t get its hands on any information about Northern Lights.” 

Decima. So these guys were working against Decima. Probably had surveillance on them. And access to military level scanning. Normally, she’d assume they were with Northern Lights. But, no way was Root getting hired by Shaw’s old bosses. 

And she’d never run across a Handler who used the ID of Finch. 

“And I’m just supposed to trust you they are a terrorist organization? What does that make you?” 

“A concerned party.”

That was a useless descriptor. 

“Reese! We have trouble.” 

“Root?” He turned towards the stairs leading down.

Shaw took full advantage. She yanked her hand through the cuff, pushing through the nausea, and ignoring the hot splash of blood as she scrapped skin off getting free. She hit him in a tackle, making his head bounce against the landing. She followed up with a punch to his head. 

It would be better to bash his head against the floor a few more times, but she could already hear Root’s steps heading back up the stairs. 

She rolled off of Reese and ran up the flight of steps towards the previous layer drop off. She needed to get away. Then she was going to have to figure out what she was carrying. 

Footsteps chased her up, and she thought she heard the buzz of an energy weapon charging, but she didn’t let herself worry about it. Just concentrated on taking the steps at a sprint. Clearing five at a time. 

After a few landings, she couldn’t hear anyone behind her. 

She took the door out onto the next layer after that before forcing herself back into a fast walk. She needed to blend in and find somewhere safe to hack into the carrying case she was carrying. 

#

She took a lift up two levels and stopped by a convenience store to pick up an inexpensive chip reader before checked into a nap pod. Hopefully, her tail would start looking for her on the lower floors that led to Decima, which would give her time to figure out what she was carrying. 

The pod was barely tall enough for her to rest on her elbows, without cracking her head on the ceiling. It wasn’t an ideal place for a hack, but that would make it less likely for someone to realize that was what she was doing. 

If Decima tracked her i-dent chip, she’d be in trouble, but that was a concern for later. For now, she took the case out of her bag. 

It was protected with the retinal lock, but made out of multiple sheets of Kevlar infused carbon flash bonded together. That kind of bonding left plenty of exploitable seams if you knew what you were doing. 

If they had wanted it to be truly secure, they would have used a single sheet of metal. But that kind of case could set off weapon scans. She used the small cracking case she kept in her bag to heat then cool the edge furthest from the lock in quick succession. It took half of her rental time for the pod, but finally a small crack formed. From there It was easy enough to use her knife to widen the gap until it was wide enough she could use a pair of tweezers to pull out the chips. 

There were five in all. Which meant whatever they were carrying had to be big. A single chip could carry an entire day of video surveillance easily. And they were a favourite way for people to handle sensitive blackmail material that shouldn’t be networked. 

She made sure the chip reader wasn’t auto attached to any of the local networks before pushing one of the chips into a slot. After a long minute, the screen was covered in rows and rows of coding. 

It was in a mix of archaic coding language and coded language. 

The reader fell from her numb hands. 

She’d only seen this code once before, right before Cole had been killed. Northern Lights had always been an entity unto its own. They answered to Control and Control answered to the government. But the Intel they used, never meshed with the stuff that other agencies were using. 

It made a lot of Agents twitchy, having an unknown master. Shaw had kept tabs on the situation long enough to make sure they were actually a government agency and not just the president’s vanity project. 

And then to make sure that the intel she got matched the facts of the cases she was given. Once she was sure she wasn’t doing anything illegal, she’d left well enough alone. She’d had Cole and stimulating work. 

She hadn’t needed anything more than that. 

Cole had.

She just wished she’d known that before he got in too deep. He’d been a great hack. One of the best she’d ever worked with. But even he wasn’t good enough to hack the Northern Lights system without getting caught.

Whatever he’d found had been enough to authorize a kill squad to come after him. And even the glimpse she’d caught of his code had been enough to seal her fate too. 

And now here she was, months later, holding that same code. Like some vicious God had decided she needed her life wrecked again. The pair following her weren’t Northern Lights. But maybe a contracted hit squad of theirs?

It would explain how they knew her identity. 

It didn’t really matter. They were right. She couldn’t hand this code over to a private interest group. At best they could use it to locate Northern Lights agents and derail their missions. 

At worst, they could sell the info to the people Northern Lights was tracking and help them accomplish their missions. That claim of Decima being terrorists didn’t sound so far fetched now. 

She checked all the other chips to make sure they were the same stuff. None of the code was the same, but it was all in that same strange language. She could send this to Northern Lights, try to convince them that she was still loyal. Get her old life back. 

A broken laugh escaped before she even finished the thought. No, they wouldn’t reward her for this. If a single glimpse of Cole’s work had been worth killing her over, the fact she’d seen chips worth of code would only cement their decision to kill her. 

Soft music started playing on the overhead speaker. It slowly got louder. Attempting to wake up the pod’s occupant from their nap. She shoved the chips into her bag and stuffed the case down into the garbage shoot. 

She needed to get out of here before either Decima or her tail found her. Using the knife, she cut into the skin at her shoulder revealing the i-dent chip that Decima would have on file. 

She shoved its bloody remains into the bag with the chips, before getting the alternate i-dent chip out of her jacket’s hidden pocket. Spraying both her the chip and the cut in her shoulder down with antimicrobial spray, she slipped the new chip into place. 

A touch of glue, closed the cut and made sure it wouldn’t fall out again. 

The pod started buzzing. The alarm that her rental was over. She shoved the reader into the trash chute with the case and climbed out of the pod, half expecting that she’d be greeted by a squad of people with weapons. 

Instead, it was just the bored receptionist that had originally checked her in. He barely bothered to glance her way before going back to staring at the screen of his computer. 

That didn’t stop the feeling of dread. Or the spikes of adrenaline that was doing a marvellous job of keeping her numbness at bay. 

She slung her bag over her good shoulder and made her way back into the press of people outside the shop. She had shopping to do. 

#

Chips were one of the most stable ways to transfer data, because they were un-hackable as long as you didn’t connect them to a live network. They were also pretty hard to damage beyond the point where you could retrieve the data. 

Even if she overwrote the data on them, someone with skills would still be able to remake a large portion of the data. Even just giving them a virus wouldn’t make it impossible to destroy the data. She’d need to destroy physically destroy the chips themselves. 

Which meant either acid or a smelter. Acid would be easier to source, though she’d still try to toss what was left of them into a furnace vent. 

She travelled through three layers before she found a place selling old style acid batteries. From there it was a matter of finding somewhere to disassemble the battery and dunk the chips in. 

Another apartment building lobby did the trick. She’d seen no signs she’d picked up another tail, but the prickly feeling of someone watching her came back as she exited the apartment with the newly scrapped chips in her bag. 

She was going to need to make this fast. 

Trash chutes all lead to the furnaces below eventually, but she didn’t want to risk waiting that log. Even acid washed, the risk of the chips having some salvageable data left was still high. 

She kept to the busiest parts of the layer, trying to spot the person following her. There was still no sign. She started checking the locations of the ubiquitous security cameras instead. Could this Decima organization have a Hack talented enough to use them?

She hunched into herself and wished for the mask she’d be using if she was still on the Underlayer. It wouldn’t do much, if the Hack was really that talented. They’d be able to track her by her size and gait. It would make her feel more comfortable, having something to hide behind. 

Direct access to the furnaces was tricky to get. She’d need to get into the repair tunnels, which would give whoever was watching her a chance to get her alone.  
So, risk someone getting ahold of the chips? Or risk getting trapped making sure they were gone for good?

#

She finally gave in and made her way to the furnace itself. Like most levels, the residents of the 57th, had hacked their way into the maintenance tunnels. They ran throughout the outer edge of the tower. The heat from the furnaces and the power from the solar glass windows worked together to meet most of the tower’s electrical needs.

Within a few feet of the entry, she was completely alone. Outside of the security cameras that still dotted the ceiling. The prickles of being watched didn’t ease. But here at least she’d be able to see someone coming up on her.

At least that was what she kept telling herself as she took the winding path down to the bottom of the five layer tract, to the nearest furnace. The stairs in the part of the tower were long and narrow, instead of the steep spiral of the emergency steps. 

But they still switched back and forth every few blocks, making it possible to keep a clear view behind her. And the roar of blowing air and buzz of electronics made it virtually impossible to hear anything but her own rushed breath.

She tried to focus on her task and push the panic of being cornered, fade, but she was stuck in a perpetual adrenaline rush. 

It was a large part of how she’d gotten through her numbness when she’d been an Agent, but then there had always been Cole’s calm voice in her ear. It had been years since she felt so completely alone. She’d forgotten how the terror of it stung. 

The furnaces were huge, trash pipes led to them from the upper five layers. Feeding onto a series of conveyer belts that fed into its hungry jaws. She could feel the immense heat and hear the clang of its doors long before she could see it. 

It was three times her height and every time it’s doors opened to let in a load of garbage, heat buffeted her. The safest thing to do was to leave the chips on one of the conveyors and then wait until they were processed. 

Her sense of impending doom was getting worse. She wasn’t counting on having that much time. Instead, she approached the conveyor that fed directly into the furnace. Her skin was tight and stretched from the heat and every breath scalded her throat by the time she got close enough she could be sure of her aim. 

When the jaws next opened she threw the first of the chips in. Then the next and the next. 

She was preparing to throw the fifth, when a weight slammed into her from behind. She barely registered the weight on her back, before she felt the person scrambling at her clenched fist, trying to pry the chip free. 

Like hell. Her head snapped back, making contact with something that gave with a crack she could barely make out over the surrounding noise. 

When their grip loosened, she was ready, wriggling away. They tried to grab her boot, but a kick got that free two. They wouldn’t risk taking blows to keep ahold of her. Not when they were between her and the only way out. 

She got to her feet and spun to face them. The woman was delicately built with short cropped dark hair and a crooked smile that made all of Shaw’s instincts scream Threat. A trickle of blood was dripping from her nose. 

“Give me the chips and I’ll let you go!”

“No.” 

“I was hoping you’d say that. Now I get to make you.” Her smile only grew as she reached behind her. 

Shaw couldn’t see where her hand was, but she could guess. Either a knife, a stun weapon, or given that nasty smile, a gun. 

The last chip was still clutched in Shaw’s hand. She could throw it away and run while the woman went after it. But she’d come here to make sure that nobody could get hold of the tech. And she wasn’t going to fail her mission. 

She ran towards the furnace, instead of standing to fight. The shot took her in the back, but on the side she wasn’t carrying the chip in. She managed to throw it, as she fell. 

For one long second she thought she’d failed. The furnaces’ doors seemed like they would never open. Then, just before the chip hit the doors and bounced off, they started to open. It sailed into the crack. 

“Nooooo!” The shout came from behind her. 

Shaw stayed sprawled on the ground, waiting for the kill shot. She wasn’t getting out of here, gushing blood, and armed only with a knife. Not when she was up against an armed agent. 

There was the crunch of boots against cement. She braced. 

Instead of shooting her, the woman slammed a punch into her bullet wound. Startling a scream out of Shaw. “You’re going to regret that.”

#

The woman bandaged her just enough to keep from leaving a blood trail, before tying her wrists behind her back and dragging Shaw back into the maintenance tunnels. She kept a fast pace, practically dragging Shaw behind her. 

Shaw was too woozy from blood loss to stage an escape, so she concentrated on counting turns and stairways. 

When she had the chance to catch her breath, she wanted to know where she was. She just needed to wait until they were back in public and she could get enough cover to avoid being shot again. 

They made it to the end of the tunnels and then down a narrow stairwell into the maintenance for the next five levels. They were down another two sets of stairs before the woman dragged Shaw off the main path and down a narrow hallway made by rows and rows of memory cores. 

Halfway through the rows of white computers, the woman jerked to a stop, made a ninety degree turn and started them off again. 

After another few turns, they reached a hole in the tunnel. It had been carefully replaced so the seam of the door was virtually invisible. 

At the woman’s knock, the piece of wall was removed. There were a dozen bulky, gunweidling men on the other side. Shaw was towed passed them and shoved into a hard, metal chair in a second, smaller room. 

Once she was strapped to the chair the woman left her there and went back into the larger room, closing the door behind her. 

Shaw could hear muffled discussion, but couldn’t make out enough to figure out who these people were. Besides the chair, the only other thing in the room was a table covered with a tray of knives, hypodermics, and a dermal regenerator. 

All the traditional tools of the torture trade. 

She had fallen into a light doze, when the room’s door opened. Her start of surprise sent a jolt through the untreated bullet hole in her back. 

She’d been expecting the woman again, or maybe one of the muscle. Instead what she got was a thin, older man. His hair too long and plain to be fashionable. It had been left white as a sign of age. His clothes were equally nondescript and unfashionable. A white shit under black pants and a wrap jacket. 

Everything bout him screamed business man, not terrorist. He came to stand in front of her, his eyes roaming her slumped body like she was a bug that had done him the disservice of getting stepped on. “I’ve been told you destroyed the chips you were given to bring to us?”

“Tossed into the furnace.” Shaw added.

“You understand why I find that hard to believe?”

Not really.

“If you figured out what was on my chips, you should have kept them for yourself and asked us to pay ransom. We would have paid you anything you asked for.”

“Not interested.”

“So it seems. But I think we can make you change your mind.” He turned to the Agent standing just inside the door. “Get him.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Greer.” She gave the honorific a snide twist, but went quickly enough. 

She returned only a few seconds later, being trailed by a man with arms as big around as Shaw’s thighs. His smile was just as nasty as the agents. 

Greer turned back to Shaw with a similar smile. “You will tell us what your really did with the chips. Whether you do that now, or after Hans is done with you, it doesn’t make any difference to me. 

#

When they started in on the torture she let herself drift away from her body. There were some benefits to the her loose emotional connection to her body. 

Everything is hazy and gray after that. If they were asking her questions about what she’d done with the chips, it didn’t register. Their words sound garbled and indistinguishable for the background roar of her own elevated heart rate. 

Which is why it took longer than it should for her brain to pick up the Bang bang bang of live fire.

She hadn’t expected rescue.

But even if the gunfire wasn’t for her, she could still take advantage.

There was shouting from the other room. They were speaking German, which she only faintly understood. But she knew enough to understand they were talking about three hostiles. 

Too small for a standard strike team. But they were winning, if the rate the German voices were going quiet was anything to go by. 

She turned her attention to her torturer. He was focused on the door, his back turned to her. He had a torture instrument in one hand and a handgun in the other. If he’d been smart , he have knocked her out as soon as the fight started. 

She inched her hand through its cuff, towards the tray of instruments on the table next to her. The zip tie dug into her, opening her wounds and adding more to the mix. She didn’t let herself react to the pain. Even the slightest noise would ruin her chances of getting free. 

Finally she could touch the edge of a scalpel's handle. Glorious silver freedom was in her reach. She inched it across the tray, until she could get her whole hand around it.

She eased her arm back through the zip tie, bringing the blade with it. Grateful for her torturer’s continued ineptitude. He hadn’t looked back to check on her once. 

The scalpel almost slipped through her fingers, when she spun it to press against the tie. She grabbed it frantically. The blade biting into her thumb. Pain bloomed sharp and so sudden, she barely had time to bite back her hiss. 

She needed to focus. She slid the scalpel between her arm and the tie, starting to saw. 

Finally , she got her wrist free and could swap the scalpel to a better grip, with her hand wrapped around the handle

Blood flowed freely from the cuts on her arm. She ignored it. She needed to get her other wrist free fast. 

The torturer turned to check on her, before she could cut all the way through the second tie. His face went comically startled for a second before he lunges for her. 

She threw the scalpel, catching him in the throat. It wasn’t enough to kill him, but it bought her time. 

Jerking her arm, she broke the partially cut tie. It cut into her, leaving a gash. She leapt at the torturer, getting her hands around his throat. The slick blood from her damaged arms mixed with the blood from his injured throat. 

It was hard to hold on tight enough to strangle him. Instead, she settled for slamming his head into the concrete until he went limp. This was starting to become a habit.

Once she was sure he wasn’t getting up again, she staggered back to her feet. There was a dermal regenerator on the tray with the torture devices. Used for keeping a prisoner fit enough to keep torturing. 

But it would work just as well to patch her up. The gunfire was still coming from the other side of the door. There wasn’t any point trying to run now. 

The screaming was getting quieter. She’d be able to run soon. Preferably before the people fighting with Decima even knew she was here.

Her clothes were in shreds and covered in blood. She’d need a disguise if she wanted to avoid drawing attention to herself

She looked at the unconscious torturer. His clothes looked relatively clean and intact. There were a few blood stains around the collar of his black body-suit but nothing that would stand out at a glance. 

There was a thump against the door. She jumped, dropping the regenerators in favour of her torturer’s gun. Another thump and the door sprang open. 

It was a dog. Huge, with its lips pealed back to reveal very large and very sharp teeth. A low growl filled the room. The small calibre hand gun she had wouldn’t do anything but piss it off. 

And she could see the lines of silver scar tissue that meant he’d probably been modded after some fashion. Probably some kind of armour. 

Then there was a flash of light from his eyes, like a lens flair, and his posture changed completely. His ears pricked up and his face went from killing machine to happy puppy. Definitely modded then, if he could receive remote commands. 

That also meant she wasn’t going to be able to slip out without being noticed.

He went belly to the floor and crawled over to her, making happy and pleading whimpering noises. Not being heartless, she gave in and scratched at his ears, getting a happy yelp in return. He basically sat on her at that point, underlying her impression that she wasn’t going to be allowed to run for it, now that she’d been spotted. 

After a few more scritches, the dog went back to concentrating on the door, it’s ears pricked. She left him too it, lowering her gun back to the ground and starting back on her injured wrist. 

She was ready for this day to be over. 

#

The sound of gunfire finally stopped. There was no more yelling from either side. The dog’s ear’s pricked up, before she heard footsteps getting closer. 

She wished she could be surprised when it was Reese and Root who entered the room. Reese had his head bandaged and was wearing a different shirt. It was the only sign she’d gotten the jump on him. 

The dog abandoned her to go to Reese, tail wagging. He scratched its ears. 

Root’s gun remaining pointed at the downed torturer for only long enough that her in-lenses flashed. Getting a read on his vitals. Then she holstered her weapon. Reese followed her lead. 

Shaw tried not to take it personally, that they didn’t consider her a threat. She’d gotten the best of Reese before. But that was when she wasn’t bleeding all over the floor. 

Not with the torturer’s handgun laying at her side and a dermal generator in her good hand. Shaw had worked with worse odds, but not against two Agents. 

Shaw pushed herself to her feet, moving slow enough to keep Root from trying to use the stun weapon on her again. “Took you long enough.”

Reese’s eyes crinkled. “Were you expecting us?”

“You seemed interested in keeping me alive.” 

“I understand why you would feel wary of anyone taking an interest in you, after what happened with your previous employer. But our benefactor seems to think that whatever you got involved in you handled well. He’s interested in hiring you. ”

That sentence sent all kinds of warning bells off. How did they know so much about her? Control had gone to a lot of trouble to write Sameen Shaw out of the national records. Even Greer hadn’t been able to tell much more than the fact that she was an ex-agent. “So is this where you offer me a new job?”

“Something like that.”

So fucking friendly and trustworthy, that smile. Too bad for him, that attempts to illicit mirror empathy didn’t work on her. “Not interested.”

Root opened her mouth, probably to say how happy she was Shaw wasn’t interested. 

Reese interrupted before she could get anything out, “We won't make you, but this..” He waved around the room. “Will only slow Decima down. If you don’t want to work for us, it would be best if you went to a different Tower.”

Shaw wanted to take that as a threat, but he wasn’t wrong. Greer wouldn’t stop, just because they’d wiped out his foot soldiers. “You know the identity of the Agent with him?”

“Agent?” Root replied. 

“Skinny, dark hair, liked to be in charge of things. Seemed to be expecting you.” 

Reese’s expression darkened. And he spun on his heel jaw already moving as he talked to their handler through his earwig. The dog trailed after him.

So they probably knew who the Agent was. 

Root watched Reese walk away. Shaw used her distraction to work with the regenerators again. 

After a few minutes of looking back and forth between the door Reese had gone through and Shaw, Root’s jaw firmed. She reached into her pocket and came out with a slip of paper before coming closer to Shaw. She dropped the paper just out of the puddle of blood surrounding the torturer. “Think about coming to work with us. She likes how you handled things. You could do good work again. Instead of wasting your time with pointless jobs.”

Shaw waited until she’d followed Reese and the dog, before reaching for the paper. It was a prescription sheet, registered to her current i-dent. The scan-code in dark black ink. 

And under it Root had scrawled a note. ‘She’ll be waiting.’ And then a communicator ID number.

Instead, she tucked it into her waist band and stripped the torturer of his outer shirt. They were weird and suspicious, but maybe working with them wouldn’t be too bad. 

At least until she got money together to move to a different tower. 

Besides the dog was cute. 

#

The Machine watched Shaw through the surveillance cameras. It had been a risk, arranging for her to see the couriers job and intercept the chips. 

Sameen Shaw had once been one of her most valued assets. Willing and capable of accomplishing every mission, with a minimum of civilian casualties. 

She had regretted it, when Handler Cole had made the mistake of trying to crack open her code, but she couldn’t stop him without letting Control know that she had grown passed their original parameters. 

Helping Shaw escape and make her way to New York Tower, where the Machine had more control, had been the closest she could come to an apology. 

She had not expected Shaw to flounder like she had. There had been signs of that kind of purposelessness in Shaw’s past, but it had been left behind almost a decade before the Machine had ever been brought online. 

She hadn’t known how to rescue Shaw when the threat was Shaw’s own mind. But now Shaw was in the care of her most trusted operatives. Her simulations shows only good outcomes from their future interactions. 

Shaw would have purpose again. And the Machine’s team would become more effective and have to take fewer risks. 

That had been worth letting a few of her old building blocks fall into the wrong hands.


End file.
